Phantasmagoria
by MisplacedSanity
Summary: Save your golden trumpets and fanfair for this martyr, hide your crazies, what we have here is a prime example of where we go when we lose it all. AU, Insane!Ichigo


Title: Phantasmagoria

Genre: Horror/Angst

Characters: Ichigo, Various OC's, various characters

Pairing: None to speak of, sorry.

Summary: Save your golden trumpets and fanfair for this martyr, hide your crazies, what we have here is a prime example of where we go when we lose it all. AU, Insane!Ichigo

Author Notes: Originally titled 'Prognosis'. I started this story way back when and took it down when I though it needed some major plot revision and various adjustments.

/speech/ - speaker is talking in a language other than English.

I'm not even going to attempt Japanese for fear of butchering the language, sorry.

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**Phantasmagoria**

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**Chapter I**

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.  
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."  
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.  
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

-Lewis Carroll, _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_

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"Well, I must say that it's a pleasure to have you apply here, Mr. ?"

"Benjamin, Benjamin Hardwicke. But that's way too formal for me, just call me Ben." The young new intern stated brightly to his employer, "I'm just out of college after all, I haven't an acomplishment to my name yet, sir."

The elder man, Dr. Robert Wolfe, chuckled as he turned to Hardwicke's resume,"Well if you insist."

_Name: Benjamin Hardwicke_

_Age: 25_

_DOB: 10-24-86_

_Alumini of University of La Verne, Master's Degree in Psychology, fluent in English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese. . ._

He turned a look of amusement to Benjamin- Ben's grass green eyes and clicked his tongue thoughtfully at his credentials, "Well, I wouldn't say that being fluent in five languages nothing short of an accomplishment. Unless you were being modest of course."

Ben shifted in his seat, his eyes roving around the immaculate yet homey office his employer kept; a coffee-coloured couch sat to the right of his mahogany desk, a bookcase filled to point of bursting, all written on the various topic, theories, and fields of the human mind while a neat row of filing cabinets placed to his left alongside a coffee table laden with numerous photographs of Wolfe and his family. A bit too personal for a director of a mental institution if he should say so. "Ah, you know, I'm not the type to brag..."

"Nevertheless I think your talents will be of the greatest asset this hospital needs," The elder man paused to rub a rough, calloused hand over his stubbled chin, a look of concern entering his previously cheery storm grey eyes. "You see, we have a bit of a... special case here."

Benjamin cocked a curious eyebrow, "What do you mean, sir? I'm sure that there is a few here that have their own set of ... handicaps, if you can excuse my lack of a more appropriate word."

The man sighed wearily as he ran his hand through his grizzled grey and black hair, the look of concern deepening the various lines of age in his face. "It's a long story. Very long. And very... strange."

"By any chance are you housing a serial killer in this establishment of yours?"

The grey eyes bore through his own green ones with a look of deep sadness. "No."

"Then?"

The elder lifted himself slowly out of his armchair to the door of his office, shutting it and locking it with a soft c_lick._

_"_Dr. Wolfe?"

"I apologies if securing the area seems a little extreme, there's some things about our residents that I'd rather keep under lock and key and share with a chosen few," Wolf sighed softly as he turned toward to the filing cabinents lining the far wall of his office, pulling a ring of keys out from his crisp doctor's coat and unlocking the top shelf of the second cabinet. Ben waited patiently as his senior fingered his way through records of various sizes and signs of age until he finally pulled a folder of considerable size, about a near inch in width with a soft sigh, "Here we are, case 715. Probably one of the saddest I've ever come across. 'Ailments: PTSD, multiple personality disorder, hallucinations-'"

"Dr. Wolfe?"

The said man looked up from the file, a grizzled eyebrow raised, "Yes Mr. Hardwicke?" His voice was of all seriousness and not a trace of his fatherly demeanor remained in his words.

"When you said that my knowledge of foreign languages would be an asset to the hospital what did you mean? And why are you trusting me with this particular case if I'm just a fresh-out-of-collage intern and when this case is such a touchy subject with the people that already work here?"

The elder man sighed again as he seated himself behind the desk once more, opening the file as he did so. The papers that spilled onto the table top were all written in Japanese hiragana that sprawled over the sheets like an inky spiderweb and all crammed into the given slots. Not a single space was wasted.

"You see, we have a bit of a language gap with this particular patient, he wasn't born here in the States and he knows very little comprehensible English. What we have been able to identify deeply puzzled us."

"Do you mean to tell me that you have a patient housed here that you barely understand and in turn that doesn't understand you?"

"Basically, yes."

"_How on earth does that work_? Surely there is an institute back in Japan that would have taken him in?"

Dr. Wolfe sighed heavily once more and closed his eyes wearily, "That's just the thing: None of them would. They point blank refused to house him."

"That's ridiculous, what could he have done for any of them to not allow him entrance?" Hardwicke pressed.

"Take a look for yourself." The elder intoned emotionlessly, with the smallest gesture of his hand.

Ben nodded as he squinted at the narrow symbols scrawled onto the documents with an experienced eye:

_Patient Number: 715_

_Name: Kurosaki Ichigo_

_DOB: 7-15-96_

_Blood Type: AO_

_Height: 6'_

_Hair Colour: Orange (?)_

_Eye Colour: Brown_

_Residence: Karakura, Osaka, Japan_

_Relations: Kurosaki Isshin (father), Kurosaki Masaki (mother), Kurosaki Karin (sister), Kurosaki Yuzu (sister) (all deceased, confirmed)_

_Notes: Shows notable symptoms of chronic hallucinations: speaks to empty air etc., lapses in focus, PTSD (chronic? delayed-onset?), mutiple personalities, sociopathic tendencies, displays aggrivated violence._

And on the bottom of all the documents was the same scribbled two words in over-large calligraphy_: Shinigami? Hollows? _

By the time Hardwicke had finished the patient's- now identified as Kurosaki Ichigo's- documents he ran his hand through his dark unkempt hair with a sigh matching Dr. Wolfe's. _Sixteen, this kid's young. Too young. His family's gone and he's locked up in a place where ultimately no one understands him. No wonder Dr. Wolfe looked the way he did when he first mentioned him..._

_But..._

"What does this all mean?"

"Hmm?" Wolfe hummed in reply to his young intern "I suppose you read through it all?"

"Yes, I did. But what does this all mean?"

"I am hoping you will be able to answer that for yourself. When the Japanese authorities handed him over into our care they did not give us an explanation to anything on his documentation. Other than the clothes on his back, that is the only thing he had to his name. The only thing that proves his existence is the entirety of that file."

Ben shuffled through the said file and found a small color ID photograph of their patient: a thin, slightly tanned face topped by scruffy, spikey orange hair (dyed or natural, he couldn't tell) falling into wide, blank brown eyes. "That's terrible..." he murmured.

The doctor nodded in response. "That was taken less than a year ago, he's ... changed quite a bit."

Ben nodded silently in turn.

"Would you like to meet him?"

The young intern stared up at his senior "Wha? Now?"

"Of course."

"I-I guess so."

"Very well. Let's go." The doctor collected Hardwicke's charge's papers into a neat pile, tucked them back into their folder and placed it back into the filing cabinet alongside its fellows.

A few minutes later, senior and junior were walking side by side down the blank white hallways of the hospital, shiny black shoes tapping the tempo of a death march on the polished tiles. After a long mutual silence between the two Dr. Robert Wolfe stopped their progress with a short 'We're here.'

With some trepidation, Ben watched as the older man dialed the room's code into the keypad set into the wall beside the doorframe; the screen beeped in confimation and with a hydrolic hiss opened the steel door in front of the pair as the hospital's director entered the room first.

"Hello there young man, pleasure to see you again," the doctor began pleasantly in a calming tone of voice that bounced slightly off the cold white walls of the patient's room, "I've brought someone for you to talk to," he moved away from the patient's line of sight to push Ben into view in front of him, "this is Mr. Benjamin Hardwicke, but he prefers to be called Ben, Ben if you could...?"

"Umm." Ben studdered as he stared into the flesh and blood eyes of the boy him and Wolfe had talked of for the past hour and a half. They hardly held the life that had been captured in the photograph in the file he had been handed, the glossy brown eyes boring into him were void of any sort of life; it was like, Ben thought, staring down one of the undead. As he took in more of the boy, the more uncanny the resemblance became. The boy sitting slightly slouched on the small bed of the room was the mere shadow of what he saw in the picture: his vibrant orange hair (so it was natural...) had now dulled and fell lank into his face and well past the nape of his neck, his tan had long faded, and his cheekbones were slightly more pronounced, dark circles were now prominent under his dead eyes.

"Ben?"

"Oh, sorry doctor." Ben mumbled before clearing his throat and stepping foward.

/Good afternoon, my name is Benjamin Hardwicke, but like the doctor said I'd really much prefer if you called me Ben instead./

The boy's eyes widened almost unnoticeably as recognition flickered in his eyes but otherwise remained silent.

/Could I have your name as well, please?/

The boy blinked slowly. Nothing.

"I'm not sure if this will work immediately doctor, it'll take months if not years for him-"

/... Ichigo/

Ben turned back around so quickly he felt the muscles in his neck pinch slightly in pain. /Sorry? Could you repeat that please?/

The boy blinked again. /Ichigo. Kurosaki Ichigo./

/Ichigo? Your name's Ichigo?/

His brow creased slightly as he nodded slowly in cofirmation.

/Why is that?/

/Shinigami./

"There's that word. It's written all over his papers. Ben, what does it mean?" Dr. Wolfe muttered suddenly.

"It- it means Death God. A God of Death." Ben studdered softly.

"And what could that mean? What could that mean for him?"

Ben stared back at the senior doctor, his eyes full of speculative doubt, "I'm not sure."


End file.
